advice

But I’m bored! Is that a phrase you have heard all too often these days? It seems we’ve become a society that cannot deal with bored kids. And we feel like we have to immediately placate them and fix the boredom with more and more activities. Usually with some sort of technological device in the mix.

Allow a little boredom to happen in their lives. It will be good for them.

Let me say one thing now. Stop it! Right now! You do not have to fix your kid’s boredom. This is not a problem! It is an opportunity!

Our human minds are not designed to be stimulated every moment of the day. They need time away from screens and the constant stimulation in our technologically crowded lives. We need to make sure our children have this down time from these things too.

Boredom sparks creativity

Letting there be bored kids in your life is going to help their creativity; now and later in life. If everything is handed to them, children don’t work out how to tackle challenges that crop up in life. And if they can’t handle the small things now or what to do in the backyard with limited resources, then how can we expect them to deal well with problems as adults.

Creative play is something we want to encourage in our children at an early age. It helps expand their minds and practice lots of skills they need, including using language in different forms. But they often don’t want to use their minds to invent new scenarios to play out if they’re just being fed a constant stream of YouTube videos. They sometimes need to have a bit of boredom as the stimulus to go and use those brains instead.

How to create an environment that supports bored kids?

Firstly, take the technology away. I won’t say it doesn’t have its uses at times, but for boredom to happen, and more creative experiences to occur, you are going to need to take it away from your child for a little bit. And yes, this may mean a few tantrums will happen.

Some of the best things to use to help support your bored kids expand their creative and thinking skills are objects with multiple uses. Children unused to doing some thinking for themselves are not going to cope well if you take the iPad off them and hand them something that has only one possible use (in their minds at least).

Instead try objects that can be a multitude of things. The old classic is the cardboard box. It can be a cubby, a bus, a rocketship or a shop. Other examples could be some paper and craft supplies that they have free reign over, or wooden blocks. Or a simple stick that can be a digging tool, a pen, a magic wand, and a paintbrush.

Once your child has gotten the hang of being able to creatively play with multiple use items, they will start to see the possibility in other items. My three year old is getting quite good at this now, and can make a phone from anything lying around the house and will have conversations with dolls about the right way to behave (based on what is expected at daycare). And given a set of dinosaur will happily retell The Three Billy Goats Gruff story.

Hopefully you can now see the value in allowing yourself to see kids being bored as not a problem, but the opportunity to develop more creativity in their lives.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy more of my articles on parenting. Comment below what things your bored kids have enjoyed.

There are many myths that float about the Internet about what are signs of healthy nails or the opposite. So it can be a minefield when you are trying to look after yourself as part of your self-care routine. These are simply my healthy nail tips I try to follow and recommended by reputable medical sources.

Our nails are a pretty important part of our fingers and toes. They help protect the skin underneath on our fingers and toes when they are being used as tools. And they do take a beating at times, because they are there to protect us. So often white marks or spots come up that are simply from damage happening to the nail or nail bed in our everyday lives. How often do you bang your hands on something, and then ten minutes later have completely forgotten that you did it until you notice a mark turns up. Most marks from damage like that will grow out (eventually…the time taken depends on how quickly your nails and hair grown and the time of year too).

Normal healthy nails should be pink where the nail is on the skin, and white on the part that grows off the nail bed. They can sometimes develop harmless vertical ridges down them (going from cuticle to nail tip that is), which can be more prominent the older you get.

(If you want to know what is NOT normal for nails, take a look at this article by the Mayo Clinic).

Tips to keep your healthy nails.

Eat healthy foods.

Drink plenty of water- 2 great things for your whole body.

Moisturise your hands and nails daily with a non greasy moisturiser.

Use Cuticle oil daily (applied to skin above nail, not to cuticles directly).

Keep your nails trimmed and filed to prevent any devastating tears. And if one occurs, get to it quickly to save further damage.

But if you are ever unsure about something to do with your nails, go speak to your doctor who can tell you if it’s something sinister…don’t just rely on those images of 10 signs of unhealthy nails you just googled! Some of them may be right, but some may be completely wrong and tell you that something is happening that isn’t really. Your doctor is the best person to ask in the end. Not Dr Google!

It is great that in this day and age that you are not limited to a home based business where you have to constantly go out of your home to get the best results. With the advance of social media in the last 10 years, it has made it much easier for Jamberry consultants and other Direct sales companies to utilise the reach of the social media world. But it has also made it in harder in some ways too. It is not automatically going to grow your customer base and sales simply by being on as many social media platforms as you can find. So here are my 8 social media tips for Jamberry consultants.

My 8 social media tips

Tip 1

Follow the Policies and Procedures and Compliance documents. Make sure you are clear on what you are and are not able to do as an Independent Jamberry Consultant. If you don’t understand, check with your upline!

Tip 2

Don’t be spammy! The best way to lose friends on social media is to be all ‘Buy from me!!!!”. Use a ratio of 80% other content to 20% business. People come to social media to be entertained first of all!

Tip 3

Facebook– learn more about Facebook and the way the algorithms work. Make sure you are not flooding your personal timeline with business stuff. It’s actually against Facebook policies and can see you placed in Facebook Jail. Use a business/fan page which is quite simple to set up and a VIP page to keep your special customers up to date and build relationships with them.

Tip 4

Instagram– Utilise a good mix of the 30 hashtags you can have to gain an audience and followers for your product.

Tip 5

Original graphics– Head Office does supply us with beautiful graphics to market our businesses with, but when everyone is posting exactly the same thing, it’s hard to stand out, and can set off spam filters too! Creating your own graphics can help you stand out from the crowd! Be sure to check up on what we are allowed to do on graphics with products.

Tip 6

Brand yourself – Work on branding yourself so people become familiar with you, what you sell and what your graphics look like. Make a watermark to use on all your original graphics. Use your branding on all social media platforms you use.

Tip 7

Be consistent! Whatever platform you choose to use, try to post there at regular intervals. This lets your audience becomes accustomed to your online presence and want to see more of your content. Using a scheduling tool such as Cinchshare can help with this. Master one social media platform before you try to tackle another. It is no use being on all platforms if not much is happening on any of them.

So many parents seem to have ‘Age gap worry’. They want to know when is the perfect time to have the next child for their lives to go smoothly. Well people! I’m afraid I have to tell you that there is no real magic number that will work for every couple.

Age gap worry- what is the perfect gap?

Some people like to have their kids super close together…which basically means falling pregnant very soon after having the first child. The idea in mind here is that all the little baby stuff will be over sooner if they’re closer in age. And that they will have someone to play with as they grow up. Being so close in age though can mean they go through all the stages of growing up together, toddlerhood, tweens, and teens with a partner in crime. Also, not all siblings get along and play nicely together, so your plan of peaceful interaction together can quickly change to refereeing a boxing match every hour.

Other people like to have their kids further apart. One child starts school and they have the next. This can be to try and avoid sibling rivalry. And being older does not always guarantee avoiding the jealousy curse. I’ve known ten year olds who were completely jealous of a new arrival to the family group and that act worse than some 3 year olds.

Of course all the perfect planning in the world doesn’t guarantee a thing when it comes to kids. Wishing to have an age gap of 2 years between each is all fine and well till it comes to the falling pregnant. There could be issues with fertility and being able to fall pregnant at the right time. Some ladies seem to fall pregnant so easily at that time in their cycle that the slightest look can see them with the next bub a year ahead of schedule. Issues with staying pregnant are also common. I’ve had a dear friend recently who went through a few miscarriages before her current pregnancy. The human body just doesn’t care about these self-imposed deadlines we set up in our minds about our families.

The best laid plans

And lastly, sometimes life and its journey gets in the way of the perfect age gap. When my eldest was 3, I wanted to start trying for a sibling for her. Along came an MS diagnosis, followed by separation and divorce. I didn’t think that the opportunity to even have more children would ever come along my way given my age and medical issues. But it did! I met a new guy, and we eventually decided to try. This resulted in our beautiful toddler, when my eldest was 13. Everyone is shocked at the gap, those who don’t know us that is, but it has been lovely. A caring big sister who just adores her little sister (most of the time) and helps out so much with her.

So don’t be afraid of the ‘Age gap worry’ when it does the rounds in your social circles. You can worry all you like, plan all you like. What is perfect for someone, will not necessarily be for you. Those little personalities do not always match up to an ‘ideal age gap’. Just enjoy those kids, whatever time they come.

What age gap have you got between kids? What do you think is the perfect gap? Comment below.